Colorado turns cold shoulder to endangered wolves

Trevor
Starr holds his sign in support of the introduction of wolves into
Colorado at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife offices on January 13, 2016
in Denver, Colorado. Protesters for and against a resolution to ban any
introduction of wolves into Colorado, mainly the Mexican wolf. (Photo by
Brent Lewis/The Denver Post) (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)

Colorado
wildlife commissioners took a stand Wednesday night opposing the
release of wolves in the state, overriding a blitz by pro-wolf groups
pressing for ecological benefits of predators. Colorado's new
posture represents a pre-emptory challenge to court-ordered U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service efforts to save wolves, an endangered species.

Cattle
and sheep industry leaders backed the resolution — commissioners voted
7-4 — banning release of both Mexican wolves and gray wolves. Colorado
still has a policy that it will take care of any wolf that wanders
into the state on its own. The issue is intentionally releasing them.

The
Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners said they wanted to support
Gov. John Hickenlooper, who on Nov. 13 joined governors of Utah,
Arizona and New Mexico in a letter telling Interior Secretary Sally
Jewell they oppose Mexican wolf recovery efforts on land where Mexican
wolves historically did not exist. That likely includes parts of
southwestern Colorado that federal biologists are considering as
habitat. "This does not represent Coloradans. It does not serve
Colorado," WildEarth Guardians biologist Taylor Jones said. "And it is
un-necessarily antagonistic to wolf recovery."

Federal officials
declined to comment. They're not required to seek state blessings as
they develop a Mexican wolf recovery plan by the end of 2017 to prevent
extinction. Hickenlooper's concern was "with their process in
developing a recovery plan," spokeswoman Kathy Green said. That concern
is separate, she said, from resolutions state parks and wildlife
commissioners considered. "We are pro wildlife," state spokesman Matt Robbins said before commissioners heard from both sides.

But pro-wolf demonstrators doubted that, carrying signs and howling in front of commissioners' facilities in Denver. "We
should kick out cattle. Wolves belong here," said Kia Bridges of the
Boulder Rad-ish Collective. "If you bring back a predator, it puts an
ecosystem back the way it is supposed to be. It would get prey animals
moving."

Sierra Club regional wildlife team leader Delia Malone
argued that "Colorado needs wolves and wolves need Colorado." The Sierra
Club proposed an alternative resolution: that Colorado should invite
introduction of Mexican wolves and re-introduction of gray wolves on
habitat in the state.
Colorado Cattlemen vice president Terry
Fankhauser supported the state stance. "Colorado is not appropriate wolf
habitat," Fankhauser said. "Our human population is too high.
And the deer population here is not robust enough to support wolves,
which would drive them to eat livestock and pets."

DENVER (CBS4) – Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Wednesday approved a resolution that prevents the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado. Demonstrators were outside the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office in
Denver on Wednesday saying they want wolves reintroduced in Colorado as
the CPW Commission considered resolutions that could keep wolves out.

The people who rallied are passionate about having the endangered
Mexican gray wolf species in Colorado and say they’ll fight any state
resolution that goes against efforts for reintroduction. They refute
claims that wolves threaten livestock, or just don’t belong.

A gray wolf (credit: INGO WAGNER/AFP/Getty Images)

“There is no reason that wolves have to be considered the demon of
livestock, it’s just not factual,” said Delia Malone of the Sierra Club
Rocky Mountain Chapter.

Debate has waged on for years, but the state’s Parks and Wildlife
Commission approved the resolution that protestors argue takes a
decidedly anti-wolf stance. Malone says the commission has a duty, not
only to abandon the drafts, but also work to actively reintroduce
wolves.

(credit: CBS)

“Wolves are a necessary part of the community of life, and they need
to, if they are following their mandate, they need to bring wolves
back,” Malone said.

Managing wolf species would require money and resources — things CPW
spokesman Matt Robbins says are scarce. He says the approved resolution
falls in line with recommendations from a 2005 study.

“We’re not opposed to the wolves that have come into our state, we
have had history of the gray wolf coming into our state, they have
historic range here,” Robbins said. “The idea that perhaps we’re trying
to do something with a bias is in conflict with everything that we’ve
said at this point, it’s just simply not factual.”

CPW’s decision to approve the resolution was largely symbolic because
only the federal government or the Colorado Legislature actually has
the ability and authorization to start some kind of reintroduction of
wolves in Colorado. So the approval of the resolution was basically CPW
stating their opinion on the matter.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone